Building An Artistic Website Effectively

Oftentimes, web designers seeking to create an artistic website spend many hours each day in front of the computer and who can blame them? Successfully building a website with artistic look is an expertise that can be gained only through experience. Establishing an artistic web presence is very different with how painters and sculptors create artworks. Websites with artistic design need to strike a perfect balance between usability motivated functionality, search engine-friendly elements and interesting visuals.

First off, designers should understand why they should have an artistic website. Regardless of the path chosen, web designers shouldn’t get caught up in displaying their personality and uniqueness with their websites that they ignore the end game, which is dispersing information effectively. Traditional artists show their works on the gallery, but the Internet is a more complex environment. With their carefully arranged text and images, artistic websites is more like an artist-made book.

One very important element for any website is always navigation. An artistic website should still be user-friendly, with clearly defined and well organized structure. Designers shouldn’t allow users stranded within the website struggling to find specific information. This could increase bounce rate or the percentage of visitors leaving the website before they go beyond the main page. This isn’t to say web navigation should be tedious, however. Designers can still use layout, font, color and if possible, navigation structure that’s inline with their personality and style.

Many web designers are opposed to having plenty of text on artistic websites. They want the design to speak for itself. But for many web users, text is still an essential method of gathering information from online sources. Even plenty of art-oriented books out there still have plenty of text inside them. Often times, a block of text is as important and valuable as artistic elements in the website.

How to Create Artistic Website

As with most website design, it is necessary to begin with a blank slate. Designers should avoid cobbling together elements from earlier designs. An artistic website should be something that is truly unique, regardless of its purpose. A good website needs to serve its purpose well and by building from the ground up; designers can foster focus, clarity and full commitment to the project. Designers should ensure that in every step of the design process, there’s a deliberate purpose to explain the thought process. If an element has no reason to be placed on the webpage, then web designers should consider removing it. Unnecessary objects will only distract visitors from core messages.

Any experienced designers would agree that copying and pasting objects from older designs are a crutch that inhibits experimentation. The approach is not meant to downplay the usefulness of iterating on earlier designs, but starting from scratch is am important exercise that can challenge the creativity of any web designer.

Custom iconography, imagery and illustration can make for an incredibly unique experience. While vectors and stock photography save designers a ton of time, those bland photos of smiling sales representatives with headset just look phoney. With artistic websites, designers should invest time in creating graphics and icons that preserve the unique look of the website as well as the message authenticity.

Conclusion

Creating a memorable and beautiful website can be really tricky. In many cases, designers need to invest plenty of time and effort, while focusing on areas that give them the biggest payoff. They should start from scratch and putting a new paint on an overused template won’t offer users the most compelling visuals. Often, designers need to create their own graphics to give the entire website a thoroughly unique personality.